Never, never, never, give up. (or, did I mention that you should not give up?)

I almost gave up there for a minute.

I think it started on my daughters 15th birthday on the 14th of August with this Perry the platypus cake I made.

Isn't it cute? Yeah, it was also really huge (it took me 3.5 sheet cakes to make it), and most devastatingly, extremely yummy. I allowed myself one small piece. Then every time I opened the fridge he was staring at me saying "eat me, I'm yummy". My willpower crumbled to pieces and I listened to the call of Perry for a good three or four days until the cake was gone, largely eaten by yours truly. Did I mention it had raspberry jam between the layers??? MMMMM.

So here's what you need to know about me and sugar. I'm truly an addict. I have this tipping point I've noticed over the years as I've tried so many times to conquer this enemy. I can eat a little pure sugar, but as soon as I hit this point of no return it is like it triggers an avalanche and I can't stop. I want to stop. I know as I eat the food, or buy the food, that I really need to stop, but I just can't seem to. I know I'm going backwards, falling off the wagon, digging myself a pit, but I can't bring myself to care when the lure of the sugary treat is in front of me. This is what happened after my cake binge... my sugar cravings came back in such force I was almost crippled by them. If it was in the house and it was sweet, I would eat it. Sometimes I would cry as I ate it, knowing it was a mistake. Wishing I could stop. My strength was gone.

Dominos.

That's what it's like. You don't feel good because you aren't eating right, so you don't want to go to the gym because you feel tired and sluggish and just bad about yourself... you don't exercise so you are even more tired and sluggish and when it's time to eat you just grab the nearest (sweet) thing. Too much thought to try to think of something healthy. Too much work to make it. Now you are getting depressed and discouraged because you've done so badly.

Dominos. Crashing down.

This is where I was Sunday at church. Depressed and crashing and out of control completely. Just a few weeks post Biggest Loser win, I was truly feeling like a real loser. Each morning I'd vow to get back on track and each morning I'd eat an oatmeal creme cake (or two) and cry. I know that sounds completely pitiful, but anyone who has ever been in the grip of any kind of addiction can attest to the fact that when it is in control, it is in control - and you are entirely out of control. Some people don't believe you can have a sugar addiction, or a food addiction, and to those people I just respectfully will have to agree to disagree. This is something that has had me in it's grip for the better part of 25 years now. I've tried repeatedly to conquer it, and I've repeatedly lost the battle. I've repeatedly given up because it was too hard, and too painful, and took just so much of my energy. I've repeatedly felt the fear of wondering if I was just going to slowly and methodically eat myself to death. I've been committing suicide the slow way for more than half of my life.

I cried out to my friends on sunday at church. I begged them to pray for me. They did. They are, and one of those friends (I love you Julie) texted me and asked me look up all the scriptures I could find on strength in the bible and to pick one or two that spoke to me and to post them in my house.

This one especially spoke to me: He gives strength to the weary and increases the strength of the weak. Isaiah 40:29 

I am weary, and I am weak. He gives strength to me. It's a promise. He increases my strength. It's a promise. Oh Jesus, how I love you. I don't have to be strong, because you will be strong for me.

It was freeing somehow. I decided to face the facts and see where my three week binge had gotten me. My trainer said "no, Tanya, don't do it!" but I assured her that my head was in the right place now to deal with what I saw on the scale.  I had gotten to 199.8. This morning I was 206.2. Okay, big deal. 6.5 pounds more or less. I can take care of that in two weeks of training and eating right. It wasn't as bad a gain as I had imagined it was going to be.

All the oatmeal creme pies are gone. I ate them. I won't be getting any more and my hubby has promised not to bring any in the house either.  There are no other snacks in the house I can't resist. I'm set up for success.  I read a poster this morning, and it said "The beginning is always the hardest. If you are tired of starting over, stop giving up!" 

Yeah, I'll be putting that on the wall too.

This time, unlike all the other times, I will never give up. No matter what my setbacks I will remember that I am fighting for my life, literally. This addiction will kill me slow or kill me fast, but it will kill me if I don't take it on, and with the help of God, beat it once and for all.

Back on the wagon. Sometimes I wish I could go cold turkey on food. But obviously, THAT would not end well. I'm back at the gym. Monday to Friday. I'm committed. The food I am working on. I don't know if it will ever stop being a battle, but I'm encouraged to remember that my strength does not come from me, but from the one who never grows weary or faints. When I fall, He will pick me up, and he will never quit on me. So I'm never going to quit on him. Yep, back in the saddle girl.

Never, never, never, never, never, never quit. You'll just have to start all over again.

I'm a loser baby! (so why don't you read me)

Well, after 3 arduous months that I'm pretty sure were about 60 days each, the Biggest Loser Challenge at my gym is finally officially over!

And it's official. I am a big loser. Infact, I am the Biggest Loser. I WON!!!

My final weigh in, which happened yesterday, Friday August 10th, was.....drum roll please.

199.6 pounds!

WHAT????!!!!! unreal! I had to weigh myself twice and get the exact same weight before I would accept it, because the day before I had weighed myself and I was 4.5 pounds heavier than that! Evidently I had eaten something salty the day before. Water weight is my nemesis!

If I still weigh in at under 200 next week I will truly celebrate being in ONE-derland, but I still remain suspicious of my body and it's quirks. Meanwhile though, I can celebrate. At 199.6 or at 205, I still won the challenge. I blew my competition away! Here's the stats!

My starting weight at the beginning of this journey (March): 242 pounds
My starting weight at the beginning of this challenge(May): 224 pounds
My weight at the end of the challenge (Aug 10): 199.6 pounds

Total weight Loss to date: 42.4 pounds
Total lost during challenge: 24.4 pounds

Theres some other exciting stats:

Since March 6th I've lost:

5.5 inches around my waist
5.0 inches around my chest
6.5 inches around my hips
2.5 inches in my thigh
1 inch in my arm
1 inch in my neck.

Not only have I lost inches, but I've gained muscle. I've never felt as strong as I do now. I have never felt a bicep muscle in my arm in my life until the last month or so, and though it's still buried under some fat, you can actually feel the hard lump of muscle in there! My Abs and back are getting stronger, my endurance is getting better. My calves are downright sexy, if I do say so myself! Slowly and surely I'm building my health and strength and losing the unhealthy layers of fat.

My BMI has gone from a 42  to a 34. Still way above where it needs to be, but no longer in that imminent death by heart attack zone.

I've been on this journey for 5 months, and though I have a long long way to go, I've come a long way too!! I've learned so much about myself, and have much more I know I will learn. This is as much, or more of, a mental journey than it is a physical one. The farther I get the more I realize that my mindset is everything.

I give glory to God in the highest for helping me to transform my mind throughout this journey, and pray he will continue to help me have a deeper understanding of why it is so important on so many levels for me to follow through on this commitment and lifestyle change.

Now that I have celebrated, I want to discuss something else that's been on my mind.

FEAR.

What's fear got to do with it? For the last month of this challenge I've been fighting over about 5 pounds. Gaining, losing, gaining, losing. I keep sabatoging myself with food. When the pressure is on to finish strong, I whimper and lose momentum. I struggle mightily and berate myself and wonder why, with all eyes on me, I can't stick to a simple diet for a few weeks longer. I had this goal to get under 200 and I thought it would be a piece of cake, but I still think it was a fluke that I made it at all, and squeaked in at 199.6 yesterday. I haven't been doing what I need to do to lose that weight. I've been trying, but I've been messing up. I've been tracking religiously every day, these last few weeks, I miss more days tracking than not. I've been exercising monday to friday for 5 months. The last few weeks I've missed two or three days. I've been exercising self control with snacking and sweets. The last few weeks, not so much. I won't just have that treat, I'll have it twice. I'm telling you, it's self sabatoge, and as I eat the food I KNOW it is! However, I don't seem to be able to stop myself. I have this internal dialog AS I eat the food. I argue wih myself about the calories and if I "deserve it or not, and I make all sorts of excuses and I refute the excuses. I swear sometimes there are two people inside me, these conversations get so lively!

My trainer and friend Melissa suggested that I have been scared to hit that under 200 milestone. She said maybe part of me feels safe where I am. I've visited this thought many times in my life. I lost over 70 pounds a few years back, and right after I did, my husband left me for another woman, took me to court, and tried to take my kids from me. I gained it back and more to add to the pot (belly that is). There is sexual abuse in my past. I have often heard that victime of abuse "hide" behind their fat. I have explored these things, and I truly don't know if my subconcious is telling me, "lose the weight and Josh will leave you too! Men will be attracted to you and you won't be safe!" The subconcious is a tricky tricky thing. It doesn't matter how much your rational mind tells you what a bunch of hooey those thoughts are, your primitive reactive mind will think what it will. Sometimes I just think I love to eat, love food, and feel deprived not eating it. Maybe that's all there is to it. Maybe there is no deeper psychological thing going on, but my heart tells me its more than just that. If it was just that I didn't want to be deprived, I could work in treats on a regular schedule to my diet (and I have done that on this journey) and be perfectly happy. The reason I think there is more going in is because I get to these points where I just can't stop. I get obsessed with the thoughts of the foods I want and I will eat it to excess. I remember being this way for many years. I can eat an incredible volume of food, especially if it's bad for me. I feel completely unsatisfied with a small portion of anything. Much of my diet planning is me trying to figure out how to get the most food for the least calories. I want and crave volume.

I feel almost at an impasse, to where I am considering going for some professional counselling. I know I have these impulses and feelings, I know some of them are not natural nor healthy. I think I might be deeply afraid of succeeding. Maybe more than I am of failing. I know one thing, I want to get to the bottom of it, and I want to understand what is driving me once and for all, and I want to conquer it,whatever it may be. I don't necessarily like self discovery. It's hard, and it hurts more times than not, but I am determined not to end up back where I started yet again in my life. I'm sick of looping around and around. I want to keep moving FORWARD. I want to FACE MY FEARS. With God's help, I want to face them down and overcome them, whatever they may be.

I think what I do in the next few months will be critical to my success or failure. I think the mental work will be the hardest, but the one I really need to face straight on and tackle. I don't want to be writing a year from now how I've gained back all the weight and I'm trying to lose it again. A year from now I want to be speaking to and inspiring others in their own health journeys, proving to them that it can be done if you are honest enough to ask yourself the tough questions and strong enough to face the answers head on.

Keep on praying for me friends. The best (and hardest) part is yet to come.